by P J Parrish
Louis felt the knot of anger reforming in his gut.
Gibralter straightened off the lectern and went to the map, his back to Louis. “Right now, if we’re going to find this motherfucker Lacey, I need every man I have. If I didn’t need you, you’d be gone. You understand?”
I understand that we need outside help, damn it, Louis thought.
“But I don’t want you around here right now, Kincaid,” Gibralter said, turning to him. “I don’t want to see your face. You’re going to Dollar Bay.”
“Excuse me?”
“Lacey lives in Dollar Bay. I want you up there to find out anything you can. Take the Bronco unit number three. The keys are in the box. Pack what you have in your locker, get a few personal things from home and get the hell out of here.” Gibralter turned away. “Dismissed.”
Louis stared at Gibralter’s back. He was being exiled. Lacey wasn’t going back to the U.P. now. He was still here, hiding and waiting until he could kill the rest of the men who had been at the raid that night. Lacey was here. And Louis was not going to be allowed in on the real work of finding him.
Louis left the briefing room, closing the door. The outer office was deserted, except for Florence, who gave him a quick look of sympathy then averted her eyes.
He went quickly to his desk, threw some things into a large manila envelope and headed to the locker room. It was empty and as he approached his locker, he slowed. The locker was ajar. He never locked it; no one here did.
He opened it slowly. Hanging from the hook was a used Kotex sanitary napkin with a note that had one word: Pussy.
CHAPTER 20
There was too much empty road and too much time to think on the way to Dollar Bay.
About Pryce, Lovejoy and Lacey. About watches that ran in cold water, serial numbers on meaningless guns. About dead teenage girls and Jesse’s hair-trigger temper. About Gibralter. About Zoe. About himself.
Keeping his left hand on the wheel, Louis used his thumb of his bandaged right hand to ease the lid off the Styrofoam cup. He took a sip of the hot coffee and carefully set it back in the cup holder. His stomach was sending up groans of hunger, despite the greasy 7-Eleven muffin he had already downed. He glanced at his watch. Back at the 7-Eleven he had called Dollar Bay and was told Sheriff Bjork would meet him at twelve-thirty at a local tavern. He was running late and he pressed the gas pedal, easing up over the speed limit. No matter. The road was empty. It pretty much had been that way since he crossed the Mackinac Bridge about an hour back.
The stunning scenery flew by but he didn’t really notice it. It occurred to him that he was becoming immune to the vistas of pristine snow with their black-green frames of pine forest. He no longer saw the beauty in it, no longer found anything of charm in the stark serenity of the Michigan wilderness. Now, it all looked just...lonely. So incredibly, terribly lonely.
He passed through a tiny town, some speck called Little Bear, and didn’t slow down. It was like the countless others he had seen as he made his way north up the peninsula. Not a human being in sight. He pressed on.
A half hour later, he came to a sign announcing the city of Houghton. He glanced down at the map open on the passenger seat. Dollar Bay was just beyond.
He had half expected Houghton to be like some Siberian tin-shack outpost but it turned out to be a pretty town, handsome red brick buildings built on snowy bluffs overlooking the river below. The streets were freshly plowed, lined with towering drifts. As he drove along the river, he passed the modern buildings of Michigan Tech. On the other side of the river, he could see the colorful parkas of skiers racing down a steep hill. The town had the cozy bustle of any college town and it reminded him a little of an arctic version of Ann Arbor.
He headed the Bronco to the center of town, slowing to look for King’s Tavern, where Bjork said he would meet him for lunch. He would have preferred to conduct business at the sheriff’s department but he knew how these small-town sheriffs could be. Long on down-home wisdom but short on the kind of technical know-how that solved murder cases.
King’s Tavern was a small log building set down between an antique shop and a bookstore. Louis parked, fed a couple quarters into the meter and went in.
It took him a few minutes to adjust to the dim light within, but he soon picked out the requisite mahogany bar, jukebox, pool table and booths. It looked like Jo-Jo’s, but cleaner with a pleasing hickory smell coming from a black potbellied stove. His nose also picked up a delicious meaty smell.
His eyes swept the flannel-clad patrons. Great, so where was Dudley Do-Right already?
“Kincaid?”
Louis turned at the sound of the soft voice. A woman’s face poked out from the last booth. She was wearing a brown shirt. Louis stared. There was a badge pinned to it.
“Over here.” She waved him over.
He went slowly to the booth, taking off his hat. She stuck out her hand.
“Sheriff Bjork,” she said.
He stared at her.
“Sit down, please,” she said.
Louis slid across from her. She was about forty, with a strong square-jawed, sun-freckled face. Lines fanned out from her lively blue eyes, framed by sprigs of red hair that sprouted from her heavy braid. Christ, a woman sheriff. Louis could almost feel the gears shifting as his brain tried to digest this.
A small smile played on her lips. She was enjoying his confusion and wasn’t going to give him an easy entrée into conversation by apologizing for her gender.
“I hope you don’t mind but I went ahead and ordered for us,” she said.
“That’s fine,” Louis said.
“What’ll ya have to drink?”
“Ah, Dr Pepper, if they’ve got it.”
“Dave!” Sheriff Bjork yelled out.
“Yeah, Liddie?”
“You got Dr Pepper back there?”
“Got Coke, Vernors, Faygo Rock and Rye. That’s it for pop.”
Bjork looked at Louis.
“Coke,” Louis said.
Sheriff Bjork settled back in the booth. Louis found himself staring at her badge. And at her breasts. They were big and healthy, like the sheriff herself seemed to be. He was grateful when Dave brought over a Coke and glass, and he immersed himself in the process of pouring it.
“So, how was the drive up?” Sheriff Bjork asked.
“Fine. Roads were pretty clear.”
“You have trouble finding King’s here?”
“No, Not at all.”
“Saw that little U-ey you did out there. That’s illegal here.”
He managed a smile. “Professional courtesy?”
She returned the smile and nodded. “So, where you want to start with Lacey?”
“Well, with any records you might have on him.”
She set a thick folder on the table. “I could have faxed you this stuff. You didn’t have to make the trip.”
“My chief thought it would be better this way,” Louis said. “Plus, I want to talk to his mother.”
“Millie?” Bjork slowly shook her head. “I don’t know how much help she can be to you.”
“Why?”
“She’s not exactly Donna Reed.”
Louis nodded. “Just the same, I need to see Lacey’s home.”
Bjork shrugged. “It’s after noon. She might be sobered up by now.”
Dave came to the table and deposited two plates between them. Louis looked down at the steaming, fragrant pie-like concoction.
“It’s a pastie,” Bjork said. “Kinda like a Swanson’s pot pie, only better.” She smiled. “It’s the ne plus ultra of Yooper cuisine.”
Louis took a bite. It was delicious. “May I?” he said, pulling over the file.
Bjork nodded, digging into her food. Louis quickly scanned the contents of the file. It was filled with detailed reports: Lacey’s arrest records, including copies of every incident report, judicial files, fingerprints, even high school transcripts. Louis focused on the military record. It took him a mome
nt but he found it: Lacey had been attached to the 123 squadron in Vietnam. He closed the file.
“This is very complete,” he said.
Bjork gazed at him over the frosty glass. “You sound surprised.”
“No, I just...”
“We run a very professional department here, Officer Kincaid,” Bjork said.
“I didn’t mean —- ”
“Do you know how many Yoopers it takes to screw in a lightbulb?”
“Pardon?”
“None. We don’t have electricity here.”
Louis smiled weakly.
“You hear about the Yooper who saw the billboard that said ‘Drink Canada Dry’? He’s been trying to ever since.”
Louis gave a chuckle.
She smiled. “We know what you think of us up here. We know you think we do nothing but hunt deer, drink and go bowling. That’s how you trolls see us, right?”
“Trolls?”
“Yeah, all you folks who live under the bridge.”
Louis laughed.
“Eat up, Officer Kincaid,” Bjork said. “And I’ll take you to meet Millie.”
“Call me Louis, please.”
She gave him a curt nod. “Only if you call me Bjork.”
They rode in Bjork’s Jeep. Leaving Houghton, they passed over an old iron bridge that spanned a partially frozen river. Abandoned shipping berths loomed to the south, framing the river like a giant rusty chain. Hancock on the other side was not nearly as pretty as its sister-city Houghton and faded quickly as Bjork steered her Jeep up a hill and out of town. Five or six miles later, they saw the state-issue, green metal sign for Dollar Bay.
The town had a haphazard look, as though it had come together out of plain bad luck rather than some neat chamber of commerce design. Even the streets seemed an afterthought — no names, just numbers that intersected letters. The town’s core was a clump of buildings: a general store, a beauty parlor, a bar and further on, a ramshackle lumberyard.
Louis stared at the rows of shingled houses that made up Dollar Bay’s residential area. Gray..everything here was gray. Even the damn snow. The place smelled of dirt, rust and defeat. Coverdale’s profile came back to him in that moment. The blue-collar dream gone gray.
They passed a two-story school of old brick and just as Louis was wondering why they needed a school so large, Bjork told him that it drew students from all around the area.
“So Lacey went there?” Louis asked.
“Me, too.”
“Did you know him?”
She nodded. “There were only ten in my graduating class. So yeah, I knew Duane.”
“What was he like?” Louis asked.
“Quiet. Skinny. Skipped school a lot, ya know? I never took him to be dangerous, though. He was just one of those weird guys who took shop class, smoked in the john and lurked around the edges of everything.” She reached down and pulled out a thin blue book. “Here’s our yearbook. Make sure you get it back to me.”
Louis took it and opened to the seniors. He quickly found Lacey’s picture. He was thin-faced and unsmiling, his odd watery eyes unsettling even then. He looked like some kind of feral animal, like a stray cat or ferret. There was nothing listed under his name except “Audio-Visual Club.” The yearbook editors had used popular song titles for future predictions and in a stroke of cruelty some smartass had stuck Lacey with Chuck Berry’s “No Particular Place to Go.”
“Duane wanted to go to college,” Bjork said.
“College?” Louis said.
“Yeah. He applied to Tech but didn’t get in. Couple months later he got arrested, joyriding with some older kids in a stolen car. Judge told Lacey to shape up or he was headed for jail. Recommended he join the service.”
“Lacey have a juvenile record?”
“Yeah, but it’s sealed.”
Louis nodded. “Judges think if parents can’t straighten a kid out, the service will.”
“Well, all I know is we were glad he was somebody else’s problem for a change,” Bjork said, swinging the Jeep down a side street. “He was gone for eight years, on and off. Then one day, I saw him in town, standing outside the Rexall. He was discharged but still wearing his uniform, boots, the whole shot. He wore his fatigues and hair shaved off for months.”
“Lots of vets were raw around the edges,” Louis said.
Bjork shook her head. “It was more than that. Duane was always weird but he was downright creepy when he got back. Always talking about how the government was screwing everybody over.” Bjork glanced over at him. “I mean, lots of folks around here feel the same way, that their freedoms are being chipped away and they want authority off their backs.”
She shook her head again. “But Duane seemed to take it personal. I remember one day he walked into the post office, cut up his driver’s license and social security card and threw the pieces at the poor woman behind the desk.”
“Was he ever involved in any organized anti-government groups?” Louis asked.
“He joined the Michigan Militia. But we keep an eye on them and they’re pretty harmless,” Bjork said. “They sit in their trucks, get tanked up on beer and bitch a lot. But next morning, they go back to work with hangovers and forget about it.”
“And Lacey?”
Bjork shrugged. “Not enough action for him. He dropped out after six months.” Bjork slowed the Jeep. “This is it.”
Louis looked up. It was a narrow, two-story, gray-shingled house, just like all the others. There were peeling wooden flower boxes beneath the front small windows, tendrils of dead plants snaking out through the snow. As he got out of the Jeep, Louis peered around the side of the house. No red truck.
“We checked the house this morning when we heard the BOLO but Lacey wasn’t here,” Bjork said. “Since then, we’ve had Dennis down there keeping an eye out. Lacey hasn’t shown up.”
As Louis closed his door, he saw a Jeep sitting a block down the snowy road.
Bjork trudged to the porch through knee-high drifts and knocked hard on the door.
“Have you spoken to his mother?” Louis asked, following.
“Usually she’s three sheets to the wind. Maybe we’ll have better luck hitting her this early in the day.”
Bjork banged again and the thin curtain in the small window moved slightly. “It’s okay, Mrs. Cronk, it’s just me,” Bjork called.
The door cracked and a pale single eye, embedded in shriveled skin, peeked out at them.
“Cops again?”
Bjork opened the screen and gently pushed against the wood door. Millie Cronk moved backward and let them enter.
The house was dark as a cave and smelled of stale liquor and cigarettes. Dust and smoke floated in a ray of yellow light from a torn window shade.
Millie was small, a humped shadowy figure huddled near the bottom step of a long, steep staircase. The top disappeared into darkness. Bjork reached in front of Louis and flipped on a switch. A weak overhead lamp lit up the foyer. Millie withdrew like a mole unused to sunshine.
“You sober today, Millie?” Bjork asked. “I need to talk to you about Duane.”
Millie’s lip curled and she shuffled off toward the living room, her hand on the wall. They followed her and Bjork flipped up the torn shade, flooding the room in sunlight.
Louis glanced around. The tables were old mahogany stuff that almost looked valuable, except for the glass rings and dust that covered them. Millie’s couch was, what, green, maybe? It was covered in frayed afghans and doilies yellow with nicotine stains.
Louis forced his attention back to Millie. She had slumped down on the couch, her hands clasped between her knees. A cotton housedress, splashed with ugly daisies, hung over her knees. She had on calf-high stockings and dirty pink fur slippers with little pig snouts and plastic eyes.
She combed her bleached hair with shaking fingers. She looked up, her eyes slithering to Louis’s face. “Who’s he?”
“He’s from down under, Millie. He’s looking for Duan
e.”
“What’s he done now?” She asked. Her voice was husky, scarred with years of smoke and booze.
“Officer Kincaid thinks Duane might have caused some trouble there and he just wants to ask you some questions, ya know?” Bjork said.
Millie raked her hair. “I don’t like cops. Never did.”
“Millie...” Bjork said
“Why can’t you just leave him alone? Why ya always gotta cause him trouble?”
Louis had to remind himself this was Lacey’s mother. She was entitled to believe he was harmless.
“Mrs. Lacey — ” Louis began.
“Cronk!” Millie spat. “My name is Cronk. I ain’t been a Lacey in years.”
“I’m sorry. We need to find your son. If we can locate him peacefully, no one will get hurt.”
“Peaceful...right,” Millie said with a sneer. She turned and reached for a pack of Pall Malls on the end table. A book of matches slid to the floor and Bjork picked them up. She took one look and passed them to Louis. The front said: Jo-Jo’s Tavern, Loon Lake, MI.
“When’s the last time Duane was home, can you tell us that?” Bjork asked.
Millie sucked on her cigarette, her gray skin pulling over her high cheekbones. “Last Tuesday or Wednesday,” she said, smoke drifting from her mouth as she talked. “It was, no, wait, about a week before Christmas. He came home ‘bout the first of the month and stayed ‘til...hell, I don’t know. Days get mixed up, ya know?”
“He left around the first of December?” Louis asked.
“’Round then, ya.”
“Where did he go?” Louis asked.
“Don’t you know?” Millie asked.
Louis stared at her. She had the same weird eyes as Lacey, only hers were clouded with cataracts, more milky than watery.
“He don’t tell me things, ya know?” Millie went on. “He was gone a coupla days. When he got back he started drinking and talking about things that made no sense, ya know?”
Louis stepped forward. “What did he say?”